


Transience

by orphan_account



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, M/M, implied major character death, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5777812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ah, you’re playing dumb again, Shizu-chan. You know fully well what I mean,” Izaya half-pouted, and the blonde debt-collector couldn’t help but smile at the antics.</p><p>How had they ended up like this?</p><p>“So, Shizu-chan, answer me straight-up this time,” Izaya tried again, tenting his hands and resting his chin daintily upon them.</p><p>“Where would you be if I was dead?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transience

-.-.-

_(Someone once told him that time was precious; that he should treasure it, and what it brings.)_

 

“What would you do if I’m gone?”

It was something asked out of the blue, something was wasn’t deprived out anything, and just there. It was Izaya who asked, his rich, glimmering maroon eyes full of light and the way his lips moved when speaking and body language frustratingly teasing. Shizuo loved him, and these little things about his troublemaker that make him Orihara Izaya. It includes the vast number of questions and the range of which his curiosity and questions extend to.

 

_(It had only been a simple enquiring sentence at first and to the inexperienced– innocent and without damage.)_

 

“Depends on what you actually mean by ‘gone’,” Shizuo grunted, but deep inside, he well knew what the scrawnier man beside him referred to.

It honestly couldn’t be helped, asking these kinds of questions, when they lived in a live that half-consisted of violence and crime and hazard almost every day. Questions like this are regarded as pure inquisitiveness.

 

_(Harsh, life is.)_

 

“Ah, you’re playing dumb again, Shizu-chan. You know fully well what I mean,” Izaya half-pouted, and the blonde debt-collector couldn’t help but smile at the antics.

How had they ended up like this?

“So, Shizu-chan, answer me straight-up this time,” Izaya tried again, tenting his hands and resting his chin daintily upon them.

 

“Where would you be if I was dead?”

-.-.-

It had just been begun as a stupidly blunt conversation starter back then.

Maybe it was sheer ignorance on Shizuo’s part, or maybe he was just so good at concealing things like this that not even his lover could see through his barricade of lies and masks.

It’s frustrating sometimes, and other times, it leads him to thinking, if it would be all worth it at the end of the day, deceiving the most precious person in your life and living a wooden smile every passing second.

 

He convinces himself that it is.

 

When Shizuo’s out to his debt-collecting work again with Vorona and Tom, Izaya picks himself up, and walks over to the kitchen area.

On the second-bottom drawer under the sink, at the very back, there’s a plastic bottle bearing the label ‘Essence Mints’ in a sharp spearmint flavour.

 

It’s more than fifteen solid years over the expiration date.

 

With a small sigh and an almost inaudible pop of the cap, he picks out one of the small while capsules – at first glance, not even mints anymore – and then another, and another, until there are four in total on his bony, pale palm.

 

_(He wonders how much longer this will continue to be routine for.)_

 

Izaya swallows the pills dry, prodding the bitter aftertaste in his mouth, as he stores the bottle back in the drawer, and slowly closing the drawer. He can’t help but think, _I might just die tomorrow_ , _I might not see Shizu-chan the day after_ , or _today I die._

It’s sad, how one of the strongest men in the area could be so frightened about an aspect like death.

When you’re human, you’re born, you live, and then, gradually, die, and beyond that, maybe it’s a sanctuary, maybe it’s oblivion.

 

_(His lack of control over the knowledge on this topic scares him.)_

-.-.-

 _Thursday, 3 rd of March,_ he writes, and every night, it’s one of the things that help him keep his own humanity and terrors at bay. His phobias and dreams and hopes – all kept locked up for no one to touch – not even Shizuo.

The pen in his hand has formed a large spot of ink on the pristine white paper as it was not moving for some time, before Izaya starts writing again, the bed-side lamp flickering and the bustling city outside of this haven forever changing and set in motion. Evolution, he calls it, but sometimes, even the ever altering still carries some semblance of it’s first state of change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_{I still remember that day when I first killed a human.}_

-.-.-

_{“You brat, get out of my way!” The man shouts, and it rings and echoes in a black-haired boy’s ears as he holds the gleaming knife in both hands, trembling but determined as he stood his ground.}_

_{The blazes around him suffocate him.}_

_{It hurts.}_

_{The burglar howled in laughter, “Oh man, a kid who thinks he’s a hero with a fruit knife thinks he can stop me? That’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve seen today!”}_

 

(Ikebukuro was known for it’s occupants seeking out entertainment – excitement, you could say. It was like a long-running tradition; a ritual between the inhabitants.)

 

_{The little boy’s smaller twin sisters, although only three, were probably already trying to ring the police – if the guy didn’t cut the phone lines, that is.}_

_{The little boy could almost taste the rotting stench of his mother – lying dead just a few meters behind the money-crazed man and his loot from the Orihara household._

_“I like your attitude, boy! It reminds me of this sow lying on the ground who tried to protect you, hm? Look at ya, what are you able to do?” The stubbled man jeered haughtily at the black-haired child.}_

_{The fire around him gnawed at the walls, as it laughed along with the burgler}_

 

(Disgusting, it was.)

 

_{What am I able to do? He thought to himself, I’m only able to do so much.}_

_{The sight of his still and deathly pale mother catches his eye again, and the sharp taste of bile rises in his throat.}_

_{The fire sweeps through the floor, leaving a wake of ash and debris, and it burns him, the heat nearing unbearable.}_

_{The man in front of him had only crazed eyes in the midst of adrenaline.}_

_{The boy abhorred his ignorance.}_

 

(It was all so human, after all.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

_{And so I stabbed him.}_

(The blood that fell and stained his hands had felt all too earthly; all too real.)

-.-.-

_{He was diagnosed with lung disease many, many years later by his friend who was called ‘ Shinra’, who he went to for the insistent chest pain and dry coughs.}_

_{He didn’t need his friend’s pity, didn’t need that drifting sentiment and sympathy in the other brunette boy’s eyes.}_

(He wanted empathy.)

_{“Take these,” He waves a bottle in front of the now-grown-up boy’s face, “They probably won’t cure your condition – it’s incurable right now what am I saying – but they’d at least delay your..”}_

_{The red-eyed boy knew what that one word was that was dangling dangerously at the tip of Shinra’s tongue. He was sure Shinra knew that he knew too.}_

_{“Thanks,” Was all he said in return. Shinra half-scoffed out of relief that his friend didn’t break down or something of the likes. Really though, from the back of his mind, he knew that the maroon-eyed boy would first slit his own throat than to cry in front of someone – anyone.}_

_{He was a stubborn creature.}_

_{“Hey,” Shinra called out right before the other set his foot outside the door, “Treasure your time, alright?”}_

_{The boy only smiled as he waved back idly, flipping the words over and over in his mind, and laughing at how utterly clichéd it was, but that was probably no surprise from the guy who made cheap pick-up lines with his headless girlfriend almost every day.}_

(Somehow, though, Izaya felt like he needed these words at that moment.)

-.-.-

(And sometimes, he takes the everyday things for granted.)

 

“Ah, Shizu-chan’s probably coming home late today, should I start eating by myself?” Izaya wandered to himself as his eyes repeatedly flipped up to the white wall clock hanging isolatedly. I was already more than quarter past nine, and the raven sighed, running a hand through his hair, before deciding on starting first – his fatty tuna sashimi was just sitting there all pretty, after all.

He coughed slightly, covering his mouth while doing so – wouldn’t want germs of Shizuo’s dinner, and picks up his phone with Shizuo’s recent text on it to type in a teasing remark about dinner, when something red and sticky on his hand catches his eye – smells like iron-copper.

 

(It looks like blood.)

(It couldn’tbe _shouldn’tbe_.)

 

Suddenly a suffocating feeling chokes him – wraps him in it’s tendrils, and his knees buckle and give way while more and more of the red liquid is hacked up by him, and his chest feels like it’s caught on fire – white-hot blaze tearing through him, piece by piece, ripping him apart and it’s pure torture – _sheer agony_.

His vision grows blurrier by the second, swirls of incomprehensible colours seeping into each other, and the nausea only grows stronger, along with the throbbing dull ache in his head.

Izaya drops his phone, and it makes contact with the floor with a sharp thud, one of the corners dented inwards. There’s a ringing sound that echoes through the room, and Izaya, through his stunted breaths, barely remembers that it’s the ringtone set on Shizuo’s contact.

 

The screen lights up.

 

_9:53pm Friday;_

Heiwajima Shizuo: _[I’m coming home now, you stupid flea, you’d better not have eaten my yogurt in the fridge._

_Love you,_

_Shizu-chan._

_P.S. I hope you’re okay, you looked really pale this morning. Please don’t die before I’m home.]_

 

Izaya knew that the last sentence was serious – hell, he’s probably at the front door right now if he’s phrased the text like that.

The pain has subsided slightly, but shoots up like electricity whenever he moves.

Maybe, he thinks, I’ve asked for too much.

A bitter and hard smile makes its way onto his lips, and even that hurts like hell.

 

_9:54pm Friday;_

Heiwajima Shizuo: _[Hey, you alright? I can see the lights on but you’re not answering. Hell, you usually answer all of my texts within the minute, are you okay?]_

 

Izaya grins through his continuous throbs of ache, _Shizu-chan’s monster instincts even know what’s happening to me? I’m flattered._

_9:54pm Friday;_

Heiwajima Shizuo: _[Fuck, I’m at the front door now, what’s happening to you? I can hear you gasping!]_

 

The front door’s hasty clicks could be heard from the dining area.

 

_(Maybe Shinra’s right, after all.)_

 

Shizuo’s panicky yells fill the room, and he shakes Izaya frantically, wiping away the red oozing from his mouth, screaming profanities here and there, and all the twenty-four year old, red-eyed, black-haired boy could do was twitch his lips upwards in silent apology at his most precious person.

He realises just how truly human he actually is - with all these silent pleas for help and apologies and hopes and futile wishes whirling in his mind.

And he could only smile.

 

_(I wish I had more time.)_

-.-.-

**Author's Note:**

> This was a warm-up one-shot before starting on Differentiate so it's actually kind of old but wow my angst skills are starting to fail me and what  
> the fuck  
> was that ending  
> FUCK IM SORRY


End file.
